Former KU player sues NCAA over head trauma

A former fullback at the University of Kansas, Christopher Powell, has filed a class-action lawsuit against the NCAA, alleging that the governing body of college athletics failed to adequately protect student athletes from head trauma and its lifelong consequences.

Powell, a resident of Kansas City, Mo., filed the suit this week in the United States District Court for Western Missouri. The suit seeks an undetermined amount in damages for Powell and a yet undefined class of athletes who incurred head trauma during their college careers.

In his filing, Powell said he sustained at least four concussions while playing for KU from 1990-94. He said he sustained one during a practice after which he incurred a loss of memory for some 48 hours, and that he continues to suffer neurologic and cognitive deficits that require medical monitoring and out-of-pocket expenses.

KU is not a named defendant in Powell’s suit.

Powell, represented by attorney Michael Rader of the Leawood, Kan., firm of Bartimus, Frickleton, Robertson and Gorny, said the NCAA was negligent in its “failure to take effective action to protect players and/or inform players of the true risks associated with concussions, brain injury and brain trauma.”

Its failure to do so, the suit says, means the NCAA breached its duties, as specified in its constitution, to conduct programs in a way designed to protect the physical and educational well being of participants.

“The NCAA has failed to educate its football-playing athletes of the long term, life-altering risks and consequences of head impacts in football,” Powell charged in court documents. “They have failed to establish known protocols to prevent, mitigate, monitor, diagnose and treat brain injuries. As knowledge of the adverse consequences of head impacts in football has grown, the NCAA has never gone back to college football players to offer education or needed medical monitoring.

“In the face of their overwhelming and superior knowledge of these risks, as compared to that of the athletes, the NCAA’s conduct constitutes negligence and reckless endangerment.”

Powell’s suit also faults the NCAA for failing to implement system-wide “return to play” guidelines for post-concussion treatment, and for failing to deal with the coaching of tackling techniques that lead to head injuries.

It also faults the NCAA for profiting monetarily while providing no post-collegiate financial aid or medical treatment to former players who deal with the lifelong consequences of head trauma.

He also alleges the NCAA has long known and fraudulently concealed information on the long-term effects of head trauma.

The suit indicated Powell would be seeking a jury trial.

NCAA spokeswoman Stacey Osburn said in an email to The Associated Press that the association hasn’t been served with the complaint yet.

“However,” she wrote, “it appears to be patterned after other proposed class action litigation filed recently. It is not unusual to see this action from plaintiff’s attorneys trying to secure a lead position in litigation of similar cases.”

As more attention is placed on concussions in sports, many leagues, including the NFL and the NHL, have implemented stricter rules on hits to the head and player safety. The NCAA has taken recent steps to boost awareness of how to treat possible head injuries, from legislation and outreach efforts to new rules on the playing field.

Similar lawsuits to Powell’s have been filed against the NCAA recently, including one in U.S. District Court of Chicago that attorneys want to expand nationwide to encompass thousands of plaintiffs.